


Answering Machine

by lactoria



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lactoria/pseuds/lactoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know you shouldn’t because nothing good ever comes of it, but you can’t resist the temptation to visit the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Answering Machine

Your name is DAVE STRIDER and if you know anything like the back of your hand or the tint of your shades, it’s time.

Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole, and you are merely its attendant.

What may be the blink of an eye could be an entire century to you.  And what may be the blink of an eye to you could mean an entire decade.  Time is infallible and ceaseless, and no one knows this better than you who can shift in and out of its flow undetected.

But here you are, wallowing in the here and now, the passage of time stagnant on the still waters as you drift through the seemingly neverending abyss of dream bubbles.

You, a bona fide agent of time, with nothing else to do but wait.

How  _ironic_.

You know you shouldn’t because nothing good ever comes of it, but you can’t resist the temptation to visit the past.

You fish out a relic from before everything went to shit: your phone.

You haven’t once turned it off since armageddon, and you’re not sure it still works since, well, Earth went kablooey and it’s not likely your signal will carry through time like a fading echo.

_Or will it._

Wait, why are you even considering making transtemporal phone calls?  Who is even going to answer?

You scroll through your contacts, tying memories to names.

Your list is mostly comprised of kids from your school, some new friends, some old.  Sure, you miss them, but you know better than to dwell.

You don’t have time for this.

You issue a sigh only to suck it right back into your throat when the only name that matters shatters your heart in three simple letters.

_Bro._

You stare at the contact for one whole minute, your body paralyzed, wholly unprepared for such an emotional impact.

It feels like your heart’s been splintered.  Before you can think twice, you hit the call button and crush the dinky flip phone to your ear.

It  _rings_.

Rings.

Rings…

_"You’ve reached me.  If you know me, you know the drill.  If you don’t, what the hell are ya’ll doing here?"_

_DIIIIIIING._

Nerves frazzled, you quickly hang up and stare at your phone as if it were possessed.

Your face blanches, all color draining from it, gut twisting.  Oh my  _god_  you haven’t heard his voice in ages.

Ages and ages.  Or was it yesterday?  Past time knows no difference.

You must be losing your grip.  Come on, Dave, pull it together.

You call again.

Same familiar voice mail.

Hang up.

Call again.

Again.

Nothing changes.  Of course not.  His voice sinks deep into the recesses of your mind and spills over until you are speaking too.

"Hey Bro… how’s it going…

…

How’s it going???  What a stupid thing to say.  I know how it’s going.  You’re not even there.  You’ll never get this.  You’ll never hear me."

Unbeknownst to you, someone else has entered the picture and they’re bearing witness to your very undignified breakdown.

"It’s kind of pathetic that I am sitting here talking to your answering machine knowing you’re actually dead in various timelines.  I saw your dead body.  You were impaled with your own sword.  Can you believe that?  I thought about taking it… In retrospect I should have.  I chickened out, thinking it’d be too weird…"

You feel your will cracking, your heart bleeding, and your chest tightening.  Your voice wavers, fingers clutching the phone like a lifeline.

"I left it where it was.  I—"

DING.

_Your message has exceeded the limit._

"Fuck!"  You hit speed dial because you’ll be damned if you’re cut off like that.

DING.

_This voice mailbox is full._

"Oh god…"  You can barely breathe and your eyes burn as something that feels a whole lot like despair slowly unleashes its weight upon you.  Your shoulders sag under the burden and you hunker over, the phone dropped with a resonant clatter.

He’s gone.  He’s been gone for so long but you never gave yourself time to grieve.

You never had the time.

How  _fucking ironic._

You hiccup and double over about to curl in yourself when you feel a presence press into you.

It’s not the wall.  It’s not the floor.  It’s warm, and it smells like that swill from the Coffee Gadget you and Karkat love to hate.

"Hey, are you okay man?"

It’s not Bro.  Ha ha, why would it be?

Wait…

Shit.

"Oh yeah, feel like a million boonbucks."  You want to wrench out of his hold, but Karkat is your friend and you’ve never heard this tone of voice; it’s soft, nothing like the gruff, surly Karkat you know.

You look up, safe behind your fogged up shades, and meet Karkat’s solicitous look.  His arms are around you, and he’s so close, closer than you’ve ever been to each other.  And under such intimate circumstances, you don’t know how comfortable you are with this breach.

"Fuck, I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have listened in."  Fumbling.  Ah yeah, there’s the Karkat you know.  Emotionally unwieldy, a clumsy confidante.

It actually gets under your skin, it’s so endearing.

Slowly, you let your arms settle around his waist and that’s all the nonverbal approval he needs to swoop you into his arms and squeeze the stuffing out of you.

You’re not sure if he is trying to console you, if he needs this just as much as you, or both.

Either way, he forces your head against his chest, your tears soaking into the fabric of his sweater.

He yanks your cape (always with the cape) around and uses it as a blanket as he takes it upon himself to gather you up into his lap.

"Karkat, I’m not one your grub things that needs a good—"

"Shooooosh, fucker, and let it out already."

You allow him to coddle you as you replay Bro’s voice in your head.

You have all the time in the world right now to catch up so you use it to remember and purge all of the hurt.

And Karkat waits it out with you, holding you like he feared you’d fall.

But without him you just might have.


End file.
